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Originally Posted by Ideal Tool
Hello, deerslayer303..Back in the 80's, I purchased a NIB Colt re-make of their 1860 Army .44 percussion revolver. I tried every load I could think of with R.B...always shot way high & far to left..I actually cleaned & greased it up & put it away for several years..I was so discusted with it!
Then I got ahold of Lyman mould #450229 this is a hollow-base design.
Well..the first thing I found was I couldn't load it with the lever..too long for frame cut-out..so used a small arbor type press I altered..still no-go..the base band was too wide to allow seating straight into cyl. chambers.
Used Lyman lube-sizer & .450 die with stop to size last band..now they went in straight!
Using 18gr. 3fg Goex..SuperGrex shot buffer as filler & this bullet produced 1 ragged hole groups..about 5" high...With perfect windage!
Incidentlly...I did try the Lee .44 conical..this has the last band undersized for loading..and will allow loading lever to seat it...but again the accuracy was no better than the R.B...that hollow-base must have something to do with it? These old guns make you think don't they!
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I think maybe the hollow base bullets expand to fit the bore. I have a similar revolver and if you drive a .457 roundball into the barrel with a ramrod and then look through the barrel, you will see daylight between every rifling groove and the ball. The barrel actually should have a larger than .457 ball to fit the groove diameter but that would require reaming the chambers oversize and molds for larger than .457 roundballs are not very common.
Also, there is not a whole lot of metal between the chambers of this revolver.